


Ten Years (A Coda to S15x08)

by Casey679



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Community: ohsam, Drunk Sam Winchester, Gen, Heavy Angst, Post-Episode: s15e08 Our Father Who Aren't in Heaven, Sam Winchester Has PTSD, Sam Winchester is Not Okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21794623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Casey679/pseuds/Casey679
Summary: Sam's chair teeters on two legs for a minute before he sets it back down on the ground with athunk. "I shouldn't be jealous; I know that. I just… I don't know. I wish I had whatever Adam's got that makes him so damn special."
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 34
Kudos: 280





	Ten Years (A Coda to S15x08)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phoenix1966](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix1966/gifts).



> Clearly, there are spoilers here for S15e08. Turn back if you don't want to be spoiled!
> 
> This fic was inspired by Phoenix1966's frustration with the sloppy writing in S15e08, and a fix-it for why four months in Hell was 40 years for Dean but Adam says he was in the cage for 10 years.

When the latest insanity is done, Dean finds Sam right where he expects him to be, surrounded by stacks of books and papers in the library. He's got three books open in front of him, trying to bury himself in research, but he's looking at none of them. Instead, he's staring into a glass of whiskey, the latest of many if Dean's guess is correct. There's a mostly empty bottle of the stuff next to him.

He leans against the doorway, trying to look nonchalant. "You know, some guy said recently that talking about it helps."

Sam jumps, which means he's drunk enough for the alcohol to numb his hypervigilance. Then he snorts, and downs the shot he's holding. "Yeah, well, that guy's an idiot."

Dean grabs the bottle and glass before Sam can pour himself another, settling into the chair across from him. He pours himself a glass and sips it, trying to figure out what to say, but what is there to say, really? In the end, he settles for, "About a lot of things, sure. But maybe not about this."

Sam just shrugs and looks at Dean. "Nothing to talk about that you'd want to hear, then."

Dean leans back. "Try me."

Sam looks at him, and Dean meets his gaze, thinking, _tell me, I can see it's eating you up inside._

Sam's expression wavers, emotions freely passing over his face, anger and sorrow and despair. But whatever he sees in Dean's expression ultimately breaks something free.

He breaks off from Dean's gaze, unwilling to meet his eyes. "I was just thinking about Death, and what he promised me that time, that he could take me out of the game, make it so no one could ever resurrect me." And of course that's why he can't look at Dean. He knows what the thought of all that does to him. "Where do you think he would have taken me, do you think? To the empty? Another universe where no one could find me? Or would he just, you know, reach out and grasp my soul, and let it crumble all away?"

He reaches for the bottle, but Dean holds onto it, pulling it closer towards. "Nope, still my turn." He pours himself another shot and downs it. "Is that what you want, then?"

"See?" Sam smiles bitterly. "I told you it wasn't anything you'd want to hear."

"I'm just wanting to know if you're thinkin' of pulling the escape cord, Sammy," Dean says. "I ain't judging you if you are, not right now. I just wanna know what's going on in that big brain of yours."

Sam shakes his head. "I'm not suicidal. I mean, I probably _am_ , passively I guess, but what's the point? Suicide is for people who get to stop, and that– that's not us." He raises a hand up when Dean opens his mouth to respond. "I mean, I kill myself and what happens? We don't get heaven. I was never gonna, despite what Joshua said. I've come to grips with that."

He lowers his hand and ticks off another option on his fingers. "I could go to Hell – trust me, I thought about it, and with Rowena down there it probably wouldn't be that bad. I've had worse, and I mean, Lucifer's _gone_ now, so that's, that's better. But… it wouldn't be _over_. There's no rest, no peace, no _end._ "

Dean looks at Sam assessingly, trying to figure out what he's not saying. "No offense, but all of that's old news. And it sucks, but to the best of my knowledge, you haven't been spending the last couple months drinking yourself stupid over it. And you were even smiling some after we had that win and got Eileen back."

He leans forward. "So… what is it? Chuck give you some new vision of me killing you, or you killin' me? That hole of yours aching?" He winces at how dirty that last question sounds, but it just goes right over Sam's head. "What are you thinking about that's got you so down?"

Sam puts his hands behind his head and leans back in his chair, tilting backwards precariously. "Baseball games."

Dean tenses to catch him before he can topple over, but strangely enough, the kid does okay. "Baseball...?"

Sam shrugs his shoulders. "Baseball games and fishing trips and growing up in one place and ten years in the Cage."

"This is about Adam?"

Sam's chair teeters on two legs for a minute before he sets it back down on the ground with a _thunk_. "I shouldn't be jealous; I know that. I just… I don't know. I wish I had whatever Adam's got that makes him so damn special." He gestures downward. "I've still got the teeth marks in my leg, you know? Cas gave you a shiny new body, but I guess my stains run too deep. Or maybe that's just above his pay grade."

"That wasn't Adam," Dean says, "with the teeth, I mean. Adam was dead and in heaven. The teeth, that was the thing that killed him." Sam makes a face like he just bit into a lemon, and Dean wonders what exactly he said wrong, and then–

"Ten years, Dean." Sam leans forward. "Adam thinks he spent _ten years_ there."

"Yeah, so?"

"So what the fuck does he have to be bitter about?!" Indignation stains Sam's voice. "You got forty years for a few months, I got–" his voice breaks– "I got a few eons of torture for my time. And now I know – now I know I didn't have to go through it." He hunches down, pressing his left thumb against his right palm. He doesn't even know he's doing it.

"Michael spared Adam," he continues. "That's the only explanation I've got.. and he's an archangel, so sure, why wouldn't he have the juice to do it? But if he– then why– why couldn't Lu–"

Sam chokes, curling in on himself. "He _chose_ , Dean. Lucifer could have spared me, but he chose not to. His perfect vessel, thousands of fucking years of breeding in the making, and he chose to make me suffer until I shattered into a thousand little pieces, again and again. Even when I got out, I didn't get out. He was _still there_ , in my head _._ Adam's the fucking _afterthought_ , a last-minute sub who didn't get tortured, didn't get fucked over, didn't have to watch his friends and his family and his brother die _over_ and _over_ and _over_ again for no goddamn reason except Chuck's amusement."

A tear rolls down Sam's face, then another. "He got ten years, time served, no punishment, nothing but an all-powerful friend in his head who didn't lock him away in his mind or torture him or anything, which is hey, you know, not a bad sentence for being willing to let the world die." He rocks a little in his seat, and Dean is so close to reaching across the table towards him, when–

"I still wake up trying not to scream some nights, and he's completely sane. I can't hear Asia without getting flashbacks. I can't have anyone but you or Cas come up behind me without panicking a little, and let's not even talk about my sex drive. I can't eat bacon, because it's too close to–to…" he gags a little. "And he's eating hamburger like it's nothing. And yet _I'm_ the one who should be apologizing to him?" His voice trails off until it's almost a whisper. "Ten fucking years, Dean. I would have given _anything_ to have experienced only ten years in that place."

Dean looks at Sam, and at the bottle, and tries to think of a damn thing to say. But he can't. Thirty years of blood and knives and torture _(and ten years and a few months of black eyes and blood and knives and torture but it's not him at least and thank god for that)_ are always floating just outside his consciousness if he's not careful. What's there to say?

_Fuck it._ He pours another shot into Sam's glass instead.

"And you know what the worst part is?" Sam asks.

_No, and I don't want to_ , Dean thinks. But Sam needs this, needs to purge this knowledge that man wasn't meant to know somehow. It's not like speaking the words will possibly make it better, but at least then he won't be alone. So instead he says, "No, but I'm listening."

"The worst part is that when Cas broke the wall, he broke it _all_ – the wall Death made and the wall I didn't ever know I had, the one Crowley put up after your deal when he pieced me back together again." Sam's laugh is sharp and bitter. "I was always the boy with demon blood, even as far back as Cold Oak. Like Cas said, I was a fucking abomination. Of course I went to hell. I didn't remember it, not until later. But that's where demons go." He rubs the back of his hand across his eyes, wiping away the tears threatening to fall. "And then I was stupid enough to give up my chance at heaven to save the world. And now I can't even do _that_."

Sam laughs bitterly. "God's a dick, it's the end of the world, and there's no place for me to go except the inside of a bottle." He pushes his chair back from the table and staggers to his feet. "But god forbid _Adam_ doesn't get his apology when we did every fucking thing we could to make sure he didn't have to jump in, and he did it _anyway_."

He wobbles and almost falls, and Dean's up like a shot to catch him. Sam almost sobs when he does, collapsing into his arms like a puppet with its strings cut. "I'm glad he's okay. I'm glad _one_ of us is. But I'm centuries old, full of duct tape and safety pins, and I'm tired, Dean. I'm just so fucking _tired_."

Dean staggers under Sam's weight, but he doesn't let him fall. Never again. "Alright, sleeping beauty," he says. "You're tired, so let's get you to bed."

Somehow, Dean gets him back to his room and drops him on bed, and Christ, he's gonna feel that in his shoulders and back tomorrow. He leans over and pulls Sam's shoes off, then pokes him. "On your side, doofus. No pullin' a Janis on me tonight."

Sam rolls over obligingly, eyes already drooping shut. "I just wonder," he says softly, and Dean has to lean in to hear him, "Did Jesus feel like this when he was up on that cross? Was he smiling there at the end, when death finally came for him?" Dean pulls the blanket over Sam's shoulders as he murmurs, " 'n when he woke up anyway three days later, did he scream?"

Then the kid's out for the count. _Kid._ Fuck, he's almost 40, and Sam's just a few years behind.

Dean pats him on the shoulder, then goes back to retrieve the bottle of whiskey. He wants to head back to Sam's room, but the ghost of everything his brother said weighs on him. So he hunts down their angel, or whatever counts for an angel these days. He finds him at the kitchen table, looking at some kind of big-ass coffee-table art book about that Saturday Evening Post guy, Rockwell.

"Sam's having a bad night, Cas. I'm gonna crash with him, but I was wondering, if you ain't got anything else going on, would you mind watching over us? Just in case I'm asleep and he needs help? You can watch Netflix or whatever, it won't keep us up."

Castiel's eyebrows raise in surprise. Then he smiles slightly and closes the book, folding it under his arm as he rises. "It would be my honor," he says.

God's never been on their side, but tonight Dean really needs to know _someone_ is.

Half a dozen shots later, Dean sinks into sleep next to Sam under Cas's watchful gaze. The last thing that goes through his mind is Sammy's voice from earlier, "I'm so fucking _tired_." And Christ, he knows how he feels.

He's so damn tired, too.


End file.
